How a YouTube-inspired prank ruined a young girl’s life

Laurie Redmond writes about how a stupid prank by YouTube “trickster” Rick Lax inspired a miscreant to copy a video the aptly named Lax posted of his “prankster pal,” Ryan Hamilton, blasting his girlfriend with an air horn to get her to put down her phone. Redmond notes that the video “entitled ‘How to get your girlfriend to put her phone down,’ has an astounding 246m views.” Sadly, one of the viewers was her 12-year old daughter Cindy’s friend’s ex-stepfather, who decided to play the prank on Cindy.

But after this miscreant played his prank, things fell apart for Cindy who eventually was diagnosed with “hyperacusis, or noise-induced pain.” As a result of this “prank,” Cindy has a “burning pain in her ears all the time…[and] [w]ith all noise louder than ordinary conversation, she feels like she is being stabbed in the ear. Her ears ring.”

Redmond has since learned that another “YouTube prankster, an F-list celebrity named Jake Paul, was sued for wrecking someone’s ears with an air horn.” And yet the air horn “prank” videos remain on YouTube and Facebook, even though they “recently removed Tide Pod challenge videos so as not to encourage dangerous stunts.” Redmond asks what it will take to have these dangerously stupid and vile videos off of social media. We would suggest litigation might do the trick, while recognizing how terrible things are when the only option is litigation.